THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLE ROCK -- Attorneys for a man charged with capital murder and kidnapping in the death of a central Arkansas real estate agent asked a judge Monday to keep statements he made to investigators from being allowed as evidence at trial.
Arron Lewis appeared with his attorneys in Pulaski County Circuit Court for a marathon pretrial hearing that included almost seven hours of testimony. He's accused of killing Beverly Carter, who disappeared on Sept. 25, 2014, after telling her husband she intended to show a house to a client.
Lewis has pleaded not guilty but has admitted to meeting Carter at the house.
Circuit Judge Herbert Wright asked attorneys to submit briefs and closing arguments in writing to the court by Nov. 23, and said he planned to rule by Dec. 15 on whether he would suppress the statements. Among the statements defense attorneys are seeking to keep from trial is an interview during which Lewis played a recording of Carter that Lewis said he planned to use for ransom.
The ruling will also address a handful of other motions, including whether testimony from Lewis' wife, Crystal Lowery, will be allowed during the Jan. 12 trial. Lowery pleaded guilty to reduced charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping in July, in exchange for her testimony and cooperation in the case against Lewis.
Prosecutors played recordings of some of Lewis' interviews in court Monday, including the interview in which Lewis asked for his phone and played a voice memo he had recorded of Carter telling her husband she was OK. Carter told her husband in the recording that he should listen to Lewis and not contact the police.
"If you call the police, it could be very bad. I love you very much," Carter is heard saying on the recording.
Lewis' attorneys, Bill James and Lee Short, argued Monday that Lewis asked for an attorney while he was being transported from the custody of Little Rock Police to the Pulaski County Sheriff's investigators. They said investigators should not have interviewed him without an attorney present from that point on.
Sheriff's office detectives testified that they were unaware Lewis had asked the Little Rock officer for an attorney. Detective Jeff Allison testified that he read Lewis his rights and that he refused to sign them. Lewis then said he wouldn't talk unless he was moved to a room without recording devices or spoke to an attorney, Allison said.
Allison said detectives moved Lewis to an office without a closed circuit camera, but secretly recorded audio from the interviews.
Lewis testified briefly at the end of the hearing, claiming the sheriff's investigators never read him his Miranda rights. He also claimed that he agreed to lead investigators to sites in other counties where he Carter might be after a reserve deputy assaulted him in a bathroom.
The judge warned Lewis several times during his testimony that he was being purposefully difficult.
Lewis led detectives to two sites in Haskell and Cabot, promising Carter could be there alive. He repeatedly said he had no motivation to kill Carter because he intended to ask her husband for about $100,000 in ransom.
Carter's body was later found bound and buried at a concrete business where Lewis once worked.
State Desk on 11/18/2015